Title: Halloween
Director: John Carpenter
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle
Format: 4KUHD and Blu-ray
Length: 91 minutes
Released: 1st October 2018
Halloween, 1963, six year old Michael Myers brutally murdered his 17-year-old sister, Judith. 15 years later a 21-year-old Michael Myers returns to his quiet hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, in search of new victims….
Released in time for Halloween night, this very nicely presented 4KUHD set is the 40th anniversary edition of the film that became the blueprint for all stalk and slash horror films in the years to come. Of course this 4KUHD print is the finest, cleanest version you will have ever seen. And the most colourful. But as a lot of the film happens at night you can also experience the darkest blacks.
Halloween had many sequels and even a reboot in the early 2000s, but none ever bettered, or frankly even got close to the original film with its excellent tension building that led to jump out of your seat scares as Michael Myers stalked Jamie Lee Curtis, gorily murdering several other horny teens along the way, but, for course not quite managing the catch the beautiful Curtis, who of course made it to the sequels….
Many, many similar films followed, but as mentioned this was the blueprint for all that followed, and few managed to match the brilliance of John Carpenter’s horror masterpiece. Halloween was released the year that I was born so this film would have been 15-20 years old before I could have even watched it (according to the BFCC). To be honest as a child, or perhaps a teen, I never watched Halloween or any horror films really, I’m not sure until now if I’ve seen the whole film all the way through! But its influence on other horror films has been well documented. Perhaps more importantly to me, what I do remember watching in my teens was John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 which is a masterful piece of work from Carpenter, who at the time was a young director - well 28 anyway. It was of course just two years later that he would direct Halloween.
Extras: All the extras may have been seen before on previous editions of the film, but they are certainly worth watching to gain more insight into the film, how it was made, the actors and the legacy that it created. They include an audio commentary with John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis. A feature on location: 25 years later – which examines the filming locations as well as the trailer, TV spots, and 5 rather nice black and white art cards each featuring a key scene from the film.
